EWN - Engineering With Nature

Over 700 people attended the live launch of the International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-Based Features for Flood Risk Management on September 16, 2021.  Host Sarah Thorne talks with Todd Bridges, Lead, Engineering With Nature, United States Army Corps of Engineers, about the importance of the Guidelines.   This effort was the culmination of five years of collaboration to develop the Guidelines, 1000 pages of knowledge, information and experience about the use of natural nature-based features for flood risk management and, the 150 page Overview that is intended to be more accessible, to a broader range of readers beyond the technical community.  As Todd notes, “we've developed some thoughts, ideas, and information that we believe will help practitioners, agencies, authorities, and organizations and communities around the world pursue this idea of combining nature with engineering and infrastructure to develop better systems that perform in a sustainable and enduring way into the future.” Listeners can watch the event and download the The International Guidelines on NNBF for Flood Risk Management  at www.engineeringwithnature.org.     Related Links:  EWN Website ERDC Website Jeff King at LinkedIn Jeff King at EWN Todd Bridges at LinkedIn Todd Bridges at EWN EWN NNBF Guidelines Project

President Biden's January 2021 Executive Order, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, emphasizes the urgency of taking action to build climate resiliency and specifically calls for the inclusion of nature-based solutions. Combined with the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act approved by the US Senate in August,  2021, which describes major infrastructure projects to be undertaken, these represent an unprecedented opportunity to incorporate Engineering With Nature approaches into infrastructure policy and projects. Our guests are Todd Bridges, Senior Research Scientist for Environmental Science with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and National Lead for EWN; Sarah Murdock, Director of US Climate Resilience and Water Policy at The Nature Conservancy; Justin Ehrenwerth, President and CEO of The Water Institute of the Gulf; and Mindy Simmons, Senior Policy Advisor, Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Business Line Manager at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.   The evolution of infrastructure policy can be seen, in part, through our experience with storms. As Todd notes, “following Hurricane Katrina, our collective focus was risk reduction. After Hurricane Sandy, the focus expanded to include resilience. Those events, separated by several years, intensified the dialogue, in a positive way, on engineering with nature and nature-based solutions.”   Work done by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in Cape May, New Jersey before Hurricane Sandy demonstrates the importance of natural infrastructure to storm risk reduction. Working with USACE, an ecosystem restoration project was undertaken that included holistic dune restoration, hydrologic improvements, and habitat restoration. According to Sarah, “before the project there was a history of flooding of the communities behind the preserve area. After Sandy, the dune restoration stood up and those communities only experienced negligible flooding.”   The Water Institute of the Gulf (TWIG) was founded in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Justin describes the opportunity for incorporating natural and nature-based solutions “to create a blended approach that addresses the need for built infrastructure, married with natural infrastructure.  For example, levees and flood walls blended with barrier islands and marsh to create a multiple lines of defense strategy that ultimately yields not only economic benefits through the protection of property and businesses and communities, but also social and environmental benefits.”   Significant hurricane and storm events have clearly shaped policy at the federal level, but as Mindy notes, the Corps has been implementing engineering with nature solutions for over a century, describing the Yolo Bypass, designed by the Corps in the 1930s that helps divert flood water near Sacramento, California, while also providing valuable fish and wildlife habitat. From Mindy’s perspective, “hurricanes over the past century have brought a lot of attention to the Corps’ capabilities and Congress has provided direction through Water Resource Development Acts (WRDA) requiring the Corps to explicitly consider natural and nature-based solutions for flood risk management, hurricane and storm damage reduction and ecosystem restoration.”   The benefits of employing natural and nature- based infrastructure is significant. Our guests believe that expanded value can be “unlocked” by including nature-based solutions, or natural infrastructure, as an integrated part of infrastructure investment.  According to Sarah, “if we equate nature as a form of infrastructure, we can unlock the trillions of dollars that this world spends and invests in more traditional infrastructure and really think equally of nature as delivering a lot of the services that are essential.”  Measuring those benefits is the focus of our discussion in Episode 2.  As Todd says, “Our ability to describe, define substantiate the benefits and the costs related to nature is really the key to opening up a treasure box of natural value that all people can benefit from.”   Related Links:  EWN Website ERDC Website Todd Bridges at LinkedIn Todd Bridges at EWN Sarah Murdock at LinkedIn The Nature Conservancy Justin Ehrenwerth at LinkedIn Justin Ehrenwerth at The Water Institute of the Gulf The Water Institute of the Gulf Mindy Simmons at LinkedIn USACE Ecosystem Management and Restoration Research Program EWN Podcast S1E6: Assessing the Value of Natural and Nature-Based Features in Coastal Storm and Flood Risk Reduction Executive Order No. 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

Season 3 of the Engineering With Nature® Podcast launches October 6. It’s been a big year for Engineering With Nature! Host, Sarah Thorne, recently talked with Todd Bridges, Lead Engineering With Nature, United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), about why and what’s coming up in Season 3. As Todd notes: “there's a whole range of things that make this year a big year, including the fact that Congress recognized Engineering With Nature in very formal way by including it within the budget, which brings importance and urgency to execute.”  We’ll be talking about the new policy directives and measuring the benefits of natural and nature-based solutions. Our guests from the new EWN Proving Grounds – Mobile District, San Francisco District and St Louis District – will discuss how they are integrating EWN approaches into their work. And we’ll talk about EWN’s recently launched International Guidelines on the Use of Natural and Nature Based Features for Flood Risk Management that provide technical practitioners the tools and knowledge needed to plan, design, engineer, and construct NNBF projects.   In Season 3, our focus is on creating the future with EWN. As Todd says, “the idea of nature-based solutions has a history that goes back many decades, but it's gained focus, credibility and energy in the last 10 years or so. It is emerging and growing and dynamic. It's exciting to be a part of that.”   Join us for Season 3 as we discuss the how innovative EWN approaches are being applied to a range of challenges including climate change, coastal resilience, flood risk management, and more.    You can join the conversation by going to the EWN website www.engineeringwithnature.org or wherever you get your podcasts.     Related Links: EWN Website ERDC Website Todd Bridges at LinkedIn Todd Bridges at EWN NNBF Guidelines

After years of development and collaboration with 150+ contributors and authors, from 70+ organizations, from 10+ countries, the International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-Based Features for Flood Risk Management are being released on September 16, 2021. Host Sarah Thorne talks with Jeff King, Deputy Lead Engineering With Nature and Todd Bridges, Lead, Engineering With Nature, United States Army Corps of Engineers, about how the guidelines came about and why they are so important to practitioners working on flood risk management and coastal resilience challenges around the world.   What: Launch Event Announcing Publication of The International Guidelines on NNBF for Flood Risk Management When: Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 10:00 AM US Central Daylight Time Watch Here: https://youtu.be/sX5SjBjxits More Info: https://ewn.erdc.dren.mil/?page_id=4351 Please extend the invitation across your networks.     Related Links:  EWN Website ERDC Website Jeff King at LinkedIn Jeff King at EWN Todd Bridges at LinkedIn Todd Bridges at EWN EWN NNBF Guidelines Project

In Part 2 of Episode 8, our discussion continues with Todd Bridges, National Lead of the Engineering With Nature program at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Anita van Breda, Senior Director, Environment and Disaster Management at the World Wildlife Fund; and William Glamore, Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow at the Water Research Laboratory, UNSW Sydney, Australia. We’re talking about the International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-Based Features coming out in September and other critical guidance documents that Anita contributed to, including Natural and Nature-Based Flood Management: A Green Guide and Nature-Based Solutions for Water-Related Disasters. As we’re learning, natural and nature-based approaches to infrastructure challenges are becoming common practice in the Pacific.   Will is Chair of PIANC Australia and New Zealand. PIANC—the World Association for Waterborne Infrastructure—advances natural and nature-based features (NNFB) in ports and harbors worldwide. Todd Chairs PIANC’s Environmental Commission and notes that PIANC is “a venerated organization, more than a hundred years old, with cross-sector involvement and participation. It includes organizations around the world supporting and contributing to the sustainable development of maritime infrastructure, which is so important to the world economy and trade.”   At a recent international symposium hosted by PIANC, Will noted how NNBF techniques are now commonplace and standard practice for groups like the insurance industry, port operators, and the dredging community: “It’s not ‘should we’. It’s ‘how can we’? This is the new way of the world, and it’s becoming the foundational, social license to operate across the Asia Pacific. Ports worldwide are driving that change towards nature-based solutions.” He notes that this focus isn’t driven solely by reducing costs but also by the demand to reduce carbon emissions, which financial markets are now demanding. This leads to activities like ports planting trees hundreds of kilometers away to improve the environment and reduce dredging. It’s a win-win-win.   We also discuss the challenges Todd, Anita, and Will are focused on over the next few months. Anita talks about the global sand crisis, noting that sand is the world's most consumed raw material after water and a critical ingredient to everyday life. Sand is central to the construction of roads, bridges, and economic development. She describes the crisis: “When it comes to disaster reconstruction, we’re often trying to rebuild in a few months or years what may have taken generations to build in the first place. That represents a massive and sudden demand for building materials of which sand is a crucial component.”   Will discusses blue carbon initiatives to mitigate climate change through coastal ecosystem management. These activities around Australia will transform ecosystem restoration from a grant-funded, government-led process to an economic process where ecosystem services are costed and market-driven.   Todd closes the episode by promoting the upcoming September release of the International Guidelines on Natural and Nature-Based Features for Flood Risk Management, saying, “There’s so much experience out there in the use and consideration of nature to help solve real, practical problems. With this guide, we’re trying to make at least an initial collection of that experience across organizations and regions of the world and sharing that with others.”   Related Links:  EWN Website ERDC Website Todd Bridges at LinkedIn Todd Bridges at EWN Anita van Breda at LinkedIn Anita van Breda at World Wildlife Fund William Glamore at LinkedIn William Glamore's Publications on Google Scholar William Glamore at UNSW Water Research Laboratory   EWN NNBF Guidelines Project An Introduction to the Global Sand Crisis The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How it Transformed Civilization The Flood Green Guide Podcast Series Natural and Nature-Based Flood Management: A Green Guide Nature-Based Solutions for Water-Related Disasters Jeffrey Sachs – Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet The Blue Carbon Initiative

Climate change is affecting the ecosystems that support life and everything we depend on. The United Nations declared 2021 to 2030 the ‘Decade of Ecosystem Restoration’, and there is a global effort to restore ecosystems and the many benefits they provide, from enhancing food security and safe water to biodiversity. In this episode, we're talking about the Pacific Region and how Engineering With Nature can learn from and add value to innovative ecosystem restoration, conservation, disaster management efforts, and infrastructure development. Our guests are Todd Bridges, Senior Research Scientist for Environmental Science with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and National Lead for EWN; Anita van Breda, Senior Director, Environment and Disaster Management, World Wildlife Fund; and William Glamore, Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow at the Water Research Laboratory, UNSW Sydney, Australia.   EWN can learn many lessons from the Pacific region in terms of its size, scale, and its diversity in nature and cultures. In the Pacific alone, there are about 25,000 islands. The Pacific Ocean covers 32% of the total surface area of the earth. The 11 Pacific Island countries that are members of the World Bank have a combined population of 2.3 million spread over 15% of the Earth’s surface. Pacific Island nations are facing critical challenges from climate change and sea level rise.   The Pacific and Indian Oceans together cover almost half the surface area of the earth. If you add Asia, which is the largest continent, most of the world is in the Pacific and Asian region. Australia itself is a huge island continent. As Will points out, the coastline of one Australian state is equivalent to the entire U.S. East and West Coasts combined! It’s a land of extremes with searing heat, long droughts broken up by major floods, and waves of cold Antarctic blasts. Climate change is further compounding these effects, and the impacts are being felt through massive coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, disastrous wildfires along the East Coast, and other large-scale climate effects.   As Anita notes, “The Pacific people have a strong attachment to land, not just as an economic commodity, but as a strong tie to their history and culture, their sense of who they are as a people. This presents a unique opportunity to use natural and nature-based features and the services they provide for local communities.” She adds, “Nature is such a fundamental part of who we are as people. Even at the smallest scale of the individual household level, it is a powerful thing. We should include that when we think about tackling big, systemic problems at landscape-level scale.”   As Todd describes it, “There's tremendous diversity in context physically, but also culturally, that dwarfs the landscape and cultural diversity we have in North America or even in Europe. So how do we, consistent with Engineering With Nature, follow Mother Nature's lead in composing solutions for these challenges rather than trying to impose and control Mother Nature with completely artificial solutions?”   Will notes that when Europeans settled Australasia and the Pacific, they applied a Eurocentric, one-size-fits-all view of the world. “Today I sit at the same desk as people who, 50 or 60 years ago, built the traditional dams, dykes, levees and canals. Now I’m trying to de-engineer those structures and make them more effectively engineered with nature.” He describes his early work as a PhD student faced with the challenge of acidic floodplains and how nature-based solutions were needed to solve the problem at scale. While this initial research helped solve the acid problem, he also quickly realized that it provided co-benefits of improved water quality, reduced flood risk, increased aquaculture, and blue carbon habitat. In this podcast, Will describes how his EcoEng team has grown this research from small test sites to huge scale creation projects and how he is now trying to create a wetland-based economy for the future.   Anita’s work at the World Wildlife Fund often has her thinking about how she and her team of environmental scientists can work more successfully with engineers like Will, as well as with humanitarian organizations like the Red Cross and others. Her key objectives “are to better understand each other’s perspectives, timing, and goals, and to train the next generation of practitioners to be able to better work together by breaking down our institutional silos so they can address a really challenging future together”.   As we wrap up Part 1, Todd notes that the value of taking what has been learned in the Pacific Region and applying it more broadly must focus on addressing not only the challenges faced by the islands, but also the connection between people and nature and how important nature is to people and people are to nature. “If we respect Mother Nature, I think she will respect us back, and we will find solutions to many of these very tangled and difficult challenges that we confront around the world.” Related Links:  EWN Website ERDC Website Todd Bridges at LinkedIn Todd Bridges at EWN Anita van Breda at LinkedIn Anita van Breda at World Wildlife Fund William Glamore at LinkedIn William Glamore's Publications on Google Scholar William Glamore at UNSW Water Research Laboratory   EWN NNBF Guidelines Project Environment and Disaster Management Webpage UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration An Introduction to the Global Sand Crisis The Flood Green Guide Podcast Series Natural and Nature-Based Flood Management: A Green Guide Nature-Based Solutions for Water-Related Disasters   Tomago Wetland Restoration Project (Australia) Big Swamp Restoration Project (Australia) Oyster Reef Restoration Project (Australia) Climate Change and Estuaries Coastal Wetlands Can Be Saved From Sea Level Rise by Recreating Past Tidal Regimes

In Part 2 of Episode 7, we continue our discussion with Todd Bridges, Senior Research Scientist for Environmental Science with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and National Lead for EWN; and Kris Tjernell, Deputy Director, Integrated Watershed Management for the California Department of Water Resources. We discuss their plans to fully integrate EWN into critical watershed projects in California. They hope these projects will showcase innovation and new ways of thinking about climate change adaptation and resilience on a broad scale, while accelerating the multi-benefits of water management, habitat restoration and community resilience. As Kris notes, “because California is such a focal point now for the impacts of climate change, we're positioned perfectly to be an innovator, to be a leader, to show that you can deliver landscape-level projects at the pace required to, not only keep up with the impacts of climate change, but to really get out ahead of it and prepare our landscape for those inevitable changes.”    One of the projects that they discuss is in the Yolo Bypass, a 100-year-old flood risk management project, where weirs direct water from the Sacramento River during high flow events and spread that water out over a 60,000-acre landscape. The 16,000 acres in the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area is providing a range of other environmental and social benefits in addition to the flood risk benefits provided by the Yolo Bypass. Experience gained at this project and others can be applied to expand engineering with nature approaches to create greater economic, environmental, and social value within the existing structure of this well-established existing project. As Kris says, “if we truly want to be on the cutting edge and address the climate vulnerabilities of the State and its communities, we're going to need to accelerate the good work that we do. And we're going to need to accelerate the kinds of multi-benefit flood management, habitat, restoration, nature-based solutions that we're talking about.” Todd agrees: “You've got to think big. Some of these projects are tens of thousands of acres of opportunity to produce the kinds of integrated solutions that we've been talking about. That's the scale that's necessary. There's tremendous opportunity in California as there is across the United States.”   A key goal of EWN and the EWN Podcast is to inspire students, future scientists, engineers, planners, and policy makers. Kris and Todd close by talking about the importance of a STEM education – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. They discuss their personal journeys, the challenges posed by climate change and the opportunities ahead for students and future professionals to apply their passion and creativity to develop innovative solutions by engineering with nature.     Related Links:  EWN Website ERDC Website Todd Bridges at LinkedIn Todd Bridges at EWN Kris Tjernell at LinkedIn Kris Tjernell at California Department of Water Resources Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area Sacramento Weirs

From flood risk to extreme drought and wildfire, California is feeling the brunt of climate change impacts and is, by necessity, at the forefront of climate change innovation. In this episode, we're talking about the unique challenges of managing California’s precious water resources and about a new collaboration between the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and Engineering With Nature®. Our guests are Dr. Todd Bridges, Senior Research Scientist for Environmental Science with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and National Lead for EWN, and Kris Tjernell, Deputy Director, Integrated Watershed Management for the California Department of Water Resources. The goal of the collaboration on EWN is to advance opportunities for truly integrated solutions to water resource challenges.    California is exceptional in many ways, from its population of over 40 million people; to its size as the third largest state at over 160,000 square miles; to its economy, the largest in the United States at over $3 trillion. It is also the leading agricultural state in the US in terms of total agricultural sales and 8 million acres of irrigated land. California is also a land of extremes with its diverse landscapes and communities, and with the breadth of challenges it faces – from droughts and floods, to heat waves and wildfires – which strain the State’s systems. This complexity makes presents a unique set of challenges.   As stewards of the state’s water resources, DWR is responsible for delivering water to over 27 million Californians while supporting flood management in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that flows out through the San Francisco Bay. Managing flood risk for agricultural lands, small communities, and larger urban centers is a top priority.   The San Joaquin Basin, for example, has unique flood management challenges exacerbated by the effects of climate change, with more precipitation coming in the form of rainstorms and less from snow. Traditional strategies of flood management in California included: straightening the river systems; building taller, more armored levees; and building bigger reservoirs. The question is not how to add-on to these, but as Kris notes, “how to engineer with nature to solve those challenges in ways that work for our communities and the ecosystem together”.   The partnership between DWR and EWN is intended to do that – to leverage the natural systems to produce more sustainable outcomes. As Todd notes, “by applying EWN approach, we want to find innovative engineering solutions to flooding or drought, or wildfires, that make use of natural systems to produce sustainable, resilient solutions that create more diversified economic, natural, and social value. That's what we're seeking – to be able to solve those challenges in ways that work for our communities and for the ecosystem together. That is what's really exciting to me.”   Bringing people in California communities into these projects so they can experience them and see the holistic benefits of an EWN approach is a key focus for this partnership. As Kris notes, part of the effort of DWR and EWN is to figure out a way “to tap into the human desire and joy to live within a natural environment. The feeling of walking into a local urban park. The joy of driving towards Yosemite and seeing the valley open up in front of you. Seeing what John Muir saw back in the day.” The challenge, Kris says, is “how do we paint this landscape that gets interest, invigorates the conversation that allows us to think beyond the traditional approaches to flood management and water resource management.” Todd agrees, emphasizing the integration of engineering and natural systems to produce broad value: “The economic utility of a project is one lens through which you can assess the value of a project. Importantly, there's also the environmental value and the social value that comes from connecting people with diverse backgrounds to the land and to what it provides. Projects that produce economic, natural and social value at the same time are the ones we want to collaborate on.” Related Links:  EWN Website ERDC Website Todd Bridges at LinkedIn Todd Bridges at EWN Kris Tjernell at LinkedIn Kris Tjernell at California Department of Water Resources San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge Pedro Fages expeditions to the San Joaquin Valley John Muir Trail The Moth Snowstorm

In 2020, the United States experienced extreme droughts, wildfires, flooding, and a record number of hurricanes. What if there was a better way to monitor and prepare for these natural events, and how could an Engineering With Nature (EWN) approach add value to “the climate change imperative?” That’s what we’re exploring in this episode with Safra Altman, PhD, Research Ecologist in the Environmental Laboratory at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Marshall Shepherd, PhD, Meteorologist and Director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia. Through the Network for Engineering With Nature (N-EWN), Safra and Marshall have initiated a project to assess pre- and postdisaster monitoring. What they learn will be an important part of a bigger project to ultimately help improve community resilience to climate change and extreme weather events by applying EWN approaches.   Marshall describes the climate change imperative: “We have no Plan B. If my house breaks down, I can go buy another house. I can’t hop to another planet.” He notes, “There’s a new ‘normal’ climate system emerging. A part of Engineering With Nature is understanding how the climate is changing; what the impacts are; and more importantly, what are the things that can be done, from an engineering or scientific standpoint, including mitigation and adaptation.”   Putting the climate change imperative into perspective, Safra notes that, “globally, sea level has risen about 8 inches since 1900. In specific areas and coastlines, the rate can be different. In Louisiana, the sea level has risen 8 inches in the last 50 years, due to a combination of rising oceans and sinking land.” When sea level rise is combined with stronger storms, the resulting storm surge and inland flooding -- which can be the deadliest part of a hurricane – can have significant impacts on natural habitats, animals and people who live on coasts, along with anyone who is reliant on the commerce of affected coastal ports and riverine systems.     The impacts are particularly severe for marginalized and disenfranchised people, something Marshall calls “the weather gap.” The poorest communities tend to bear the brunt of extreme weather and climate. As he explains, climate vulnerability is determined by exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. So, even if people are equally exposed to a hurricane or flood, some communities, some people, and some buildings will be more sensitive to the impact of that exposure. In Hurricane Katrina, for example, many of the people who were sheltering in the Superdome were the poorest and most vulnerable and, after the hurricane, the least able to adapt and recover. By looking at vulnerable communities through what Marshall calls “the lens of equity,” factors that can help quantify climate vulnerability, such as race, health insurance coverage, access to hospitals, availability of heating and cooling in homes, and so on, can be taken into consideration. He adds that vulnerability “is not just about how strong the storm is.”   The project Safra and Marshall have initiated is part of a broader project N-EWN is undertaking to help communities address the impacts of climate change, adapt, and become more resilient. Applying an EWN approach will help N-EWN collaborators determine how best to integrate advances in EWN processes to optimize flood risk reduction to protect communities, and importantly, how to meaningfully engage vulnerable communities in understanding the challenges and participating in the codevelopment of sustainable solutions.   Safra and Marshall are focused on gathering data on storm events and impacts on natural habitats to help build the case for EWN-type solutions. They recently hosted a virtual workshop with experts who collect pre- and postevent data to understand the challenges of gathering local data and what is needed to overcome these gaps. They wanted to understand the state of the science for monitoring these events. As Safra explains, “We quickly realized that that the data is typically not aggregated, and there are not a lot of EWN projects we can use, but there are lots of storm events and natural habitats that we can use as a proxy for EWN-type projects to build the case. Through case studies and examples, we can demonstrate that these Engineering With Nature solutions would be a cost benefit and really helpful in protecting our coastal communities.” Better data is key to understanding and ultimately developing more resilient natural systems and enabling communities to adapt and become more resilient to climate change and extreme weather events. Their project is an important piece in the broader puzzle—how to quantify and reduce climate vulnerability through innovative, multidisciplinary approaches.   Related Links:  EWN Website ERDC Website Network for Engineering With Nature Collaborating with Academia to Develop Future Practice and Practitioners: EWN Podcast S1E10 (N-EWN) Safra Altman at EWN Safra Altman at LinkedIn Marshall Shepherd at University of Georgia Marshall Shepherd at LinkedIn Multi-hazard climate risk projections for the United States Closing the Weather Gap – Ted Talk by Marshall Shepherd Three kinds of bias that shape your worldview – Ted Talk by Marshall Shepherd How marginalized communities are worst hit by extreme weather events – Ted Talk by Marshall Shepherd Related work by Neil Debbage at UTSA on flooding and vulnerable populations

Seventeen hundred U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) bases around the world are subject to sea level rise, which has increased by seven to eight inches since 1900. Natural hazards, such as severe storms and hurricanes, are occurring more frequently; and climate change is changing the profile of those hazards. Innovative solutions are needed to protect these bases. In this episode we’re talking with Dr. Todd Bridges, Senior Research Scientist for Environmental Science with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and National Lead for Engineering With Nature®, and Lori Adornato, Program Manager at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, about the passion they share for oceanography and for solving future challenges by using innovative nature-based solutions.   Ensuring that DoD installations are resilient in the face of a broad range of natural hazards is critical and demands innovative, outside-the-box solutions. As Lori explains, numerous DoD installations around the world have “gray infrastructure,” bulkheads or seawalls made out of cement blocks that are placed in the water. These require considerable maintenance and can actually create additional problems like changes in the way water and sediments flow that can compromise both habitats and the structural integrity of structures and shorelines. Sustainable solutions are needed for coastal erosion, storm, and flood risks. Natural systems have been supporting such functions for millennia, including coral reefs in the tropics and oyster reefs in sub-tropical areas.   DARPA is investing in leveraging nature to support mission resilience by establishing the REEFENSE program (a combination of “reef” and “defense”), which Lori manages, to take advantage of the natural functions that reefs provide. REEFENSE isn’t a restoration effort. It is an initiative focused on building new, living reef structures through a combination of an engineered base structure, the “building power” the oysters and coral organisms provide, and the beneficial organisms that help to maintain the health of the reef – a nature-based combination that attenuates wave energy and protects shorelines. The goal is to support nature-based ecosystems that can sustain themselves naturally and grow and strengthen over time as calcium carbonate from the oyster shells and coral skeletons is deposited. As Lori explains, this allows the reef to keep pace with sea level rise following the same dynamic that you would find in a normal healthy reef ecosystem.   One of the challenges of this approach is using reef builders that can adapt to the rapid changes associated with climate change, particularly the rise in ocean temperature, which can cause coral bleaching and kill the coral. One way to address this is through adaptive biology, selecting organisms that can better withstand the temperature rise to help the reef system survive.   “It's fascinating, exciting, and inspiring for an agency like DARPA that’s known for ‘gee whiz’ technology to be doing research like this,” notes Todd. “It’s truly engineering with nature. Our EWN team is super excited about working with DARPA on this program, bringing these proposed structures into our laboratories to evaluate them and get at their engineering performance as they transition to deployment in the field.”   It is estimated that the U.S. already derives a flood risk reduction benefit of $1.8 billion annually from existing reefs. In some highly developed coastline areas like Florida and Hawaii, annual benefits exceed $10 million per kilometer of reef. These benefits were discussed in previous EWN podcasts, including Season 1, Episode 3, with Brigadier General Patrice Melancon and Season 1, Episode 6, with Mike Beck. DARPA is pursuing REEFENSE to develop solutions that will support the resilience of coastal military installations and the mission of the Department of Defense worldwide.     Related Links:  EWN Website ERDC Website Todd Bridges at LinkedIn Todd Bridges at EWN Lori Adornato at DARPA   DARPA Launches Program to Mitigate Coastal Flooding, Erosion and Storm Damage Using Natural Infrastructure to Increase Resilience for Military Installations: EWN Podcast S1E3 Coastal Resilience at Tyndall Air Force Base Assessing the Value of Natural and Nature-Based Features in Coastal Storm and Flood Risk Reduction: EWN Podcast S1E6 The Value of US Coral Reefs for Flood Risk Reduction: J Nature Sustainability